The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read online

  Oesc shook his head, laughing. “Nay, I must see how my grandfather’s high seat fits me before I seek someone to share it. Give me a year or three to settle into my kingship. I promise you I will consider an alliance then.”

  Hrofe began to talk of how Hengest had married his daughter Reginwynna to the Vor-Tigernus, and Oesc sat back with a sigh. For so long, even the idea of marriage had been out of the question; the thought of a connection more meaningful than his brief encounters with whores or serving-maids took some getting used to. More important still, any marriage he made would commit him to an alliance. If Artor had had another sister—his lips twitched as he remembered the overwhelming beauty of Leudonus’s queen. Even if Morgause had been free, it would take a brave man to husband her. She was fertile, though. It was said that nine months after the feast of Lugus she too had been brought to bed of a fine boy that her husband accepted as his own.

  Lost in his own thoughts, he did not realize that Andulf had begun to sing

  “. . . Where once he had held

  most bliss in the world, war swept away

  all Finn’s thanes, save few alone

  that he might not at that meeting place

  with war against Hengest finish the fight

  nor the survivors with warfare wrest free

  from the king’s thane. . . .”

  It was the tale of the fight at Finnesburgh, the first of Hengest’s great deeds, though Hengest himself had never boasted about it. That was a hard and bitter story, of the time when Hengest had led the warband of the Dane-king Hnaef on visit to his brother-in-law the Frisian Finn, and when enmity between Finn’s men and Hnaef’s had become warfare, first forced the Frisian king to divide the steading between the two sides and keep them through the winter, and when the Danes insisted on revenge, broken the peace-troth pledged with Finn in order to avenge his lord.

  “. . . But they bid him take terms,

  that the king another hall should clear,

  hall and high seat, that they half would hold

  of all the Jutes’ sons might possess,

  and at wealth-giving, Folkwalda’s son

  every day the Danes would honor,

  and Hengest’s riders, with rings as was right

  even as well with treasured wealth

  and golden cups, the Frisian kin

  in the beer-hall he bolstered in spirit.”

  Hengest had done the same thing again, he thought, when for the sake of his people he turned against the Vor-Tigernus and attacked the British princes. Oesc looked up at the empty high seat, contemplating once more the stature of the man who had occupied it. What would I do, faced with such a decision? he wondered then. If I am ever forced to choose between my own folk and Artor, what will I do?

  Andulf ended the story of the slaying of the Frisians, and once more the meadhorn went round. The tales of Hengest’s deeds had inspired his mourners to vows of emulation, most of them, as might have been expected, at the expense of their British neighbors.

  “This is my oath, in Woden’s name—” Ceretic lifted the horn. “To push the borders of the West Saxon lands outward until Dumnonia is ours, to found a line of kings who shall rule in this island for a hundred generations, to leave a name that shall be remembered as that of the father of this island’s kings!”

  That did not leave much scope for the other dynasties, and there were a few raised eyebrows, but neither was it much of a threat to the present balance of power. Oesc waited with growing apprehension for the horn to come round to him. Even when he took it in his hand he did not know what he was going to say.

  For a long moment he stared at the empty high seat, then he turned to face his guests once more.

  “I have fought in battles and killed enemies,” he said slowly, “but all my great deeds are still in the future. I am too new in my lordship to make great boasts for my people. I was not here at Hengest’s death to take his blessing. To sit in his seat without having performed some great exploit would be overweening pride. This therefore, is my boast. I will go from this place now, at night’s high noon, and sit out upon my grandfather’s grave mound. If I can sit in that high seat without scathe until dawn, I will claim his place as king.”

  As he finished, men began to nod and pound the tables in approval. Oesc’s vow was unexpected, but not unworthy. It was true that Hengest had met his death in good heart as befitted a warrior and had no reason to hate the living, but the ghosts of the mighty dead could be unchancy, especially when disturbed in their howes.

  At first the chill of the night air was welcome after the heat of the hall. But as Oesc approached the mound that had been raised for Hengest just inside the southeastern wall he began to feel the cold, and was glad of the heavy cloak he had brought along. Mist lay heavy on the fields, beyond the tumbled stones, luminous in the light of the waning moon. A dog howled in the town behind him and he suppressed a shiver, hoping that the two warriors who were escorting him had not seen. His shadow lengthened before him in the light of their torches, as if his fetch were hastening towards the mound.

  The hill they had raised above the box containing his father’s head was as he remembered, flattened a little by time and covered with green grass. Hengest’s mound rose stark and black beside it, the colors of the white stallion carved on his grave-post still bright.

  “Hengest son of Wihtgils, it is I, Oesc, blood of your blood, who come to your howe seeking counsel. Accept this food and drink, grandfather, and allow me to sit with you in safety until dawn.” He unstoppered the flask of mead and poured its contents into the ditch that surrounded the grave mound, then crumbled the barley cake between his fingers and scattered it there.

  He waited in silence, and presently it seemed to him that the night had grown a little warmer. “Woden, lord of the slain, be with me now . . .” he whispered, then he gathered up the folds of his cloak and leaped across the ditch onto the mound. He lifted one hand in salute to his men. Then they turned and left him alone.

  Oesc’s first awareness was of stillness without silence. From the woods beyond the fields he heard the bark of a fox and from the town a dog answering it. From time to time some unusually exuberant burst of shouting echoed faint from the hall.

  He patted the earth beside him. “I am glad that you can hear the celebration, grandfather, and that you are not completely alone out here in your mound . . .”

  The Christian priests would say that Hengest burned now in their Gehenna, and that it was superstition to talk to him as if he were alive in the mound. But that did not stop them from praying at the graves of their saints, who were said to dwell with their god in bliss. Hæthwæge had always taught him that a man was a vastly more complex creation than the Christian duality of body and soul, and that while part of the being that had been Hengest feasted in Woden’s hall, another part might still cling to the ashes buried in this mound, while the clan-soul which he had inherited from his forebears waited to take flesh again in some future child of his line.

  He had seen how they buried Octha’s head, and he supposed that after they burned Hengest’s body, the bronze urn containing his ashes had been treated likewise, set within a wooden chamber with his shield and seax and spear, his helmet and arm rings, bronze-bound buckets and bowls with food and drink and all such other gear as he might need. Oesc tried to imagine what it was like down there in the heart of the mound.

  “I have no wish to disturb your rest, grandfather, but I need your wisdom,” Oesc said softly. “Give me your mind, teach me what you have learned from your deeds; and give me your luck, the might and main that carried you across the sea to claim this land, and that will help me to hold it. It is not your treasure that I need from you, Hengest, but this ghostly inheritance.”

  Once more the wind blew, ruffling the guard-hairs on the fur that lined his cloak. Oesc pulled it more tightly around him and settled himself to wait, breathing in and out in a steady rhythm as Hæthwæge had taught him. Time seemed to move slowly, but when a
night bird’s cry brought him briefly to awareness, he saw that the moon had moved a quarter of the way across the sky.

  It was in the dead of the out-tide, when even the singing from the mead-hall had stilled, that Oesc became conscious in a way that was different from before. He saw the moon low in the west, but he saw also the grey shape that sat beside him on the mound. It was Hengest, the metal-woven braid on his Frankish tunic glinting in the moonlight, but though the wind bent the grass, it did not stir a hair of his flowing beard.

  His lips did not move, and yet Oesc felt knowledge precipitating in his awareness like the dew on the grass. He knew the snarling faces of men now fifty years in their graves, the white cliffs of Dubris above the heaving grey waves of the sea, the clamor of a thousand fights, and the long slow years in Cantu-ware, growing into the land. Everything that had made Hengest a king was now his, if he had the might to use it.

  “I see now what you have done . . .” he sent his own thought to that powerful presence, “but not what I must do . . .”

  There was amusement in the answer that returned to him. “That is your Wyrd, not mine. But this I will say—land-right belongs to those who give themselves to the land. Seek the Lady, and offer Her your seed and your soul. . . .”

  In the sky the stars were fading. Hengest’s form dimmed—for a moment Oesc could see the shapes of field and tree through it, then it was gone.

  He took a deep breath, returning sensation rushing tingling through hands and feet. Stiffened muscles did not want to move, but he got upright, and going carefully, for his balance was still unsure, descended the mound. On the other side of the ditch he fell to his knees and plunged his fingers through the new grass and into the soil.

  “Earth, my mother, my life is yours. In return I take this kingdom into my hand.”

  As the first light of the new day scattered gold across the softly flowing waters of the Stur and glowed on the grass, Oesc son of Octha son of Hengest returned to his grandfather’s mead-hall and ascended the high seat that was waiting for him there.

  VIII

  BATTLES IN THE MIST

  A.D. 493

  “CAN THERE BE ANY ANGLES LEFT IN GERMANIA?” ARTOR slapped the table so hard that the map shivered and the inkwell skipped dangerously. “For fifteen years every spring has brought more of them flocking northward like wild geese across the sea. But these geese don’t fly home again. The Iceni and Trinovante lands have long been lost to us, and now the Angles are spreading into the Coritani country. If they link up with their countrymen above the Abus, King Icel will have a stranglehold on half the island!”

  The flicker of a hanging lamp added an uncertain illumination to the grey light coming in through the thick panes of the window, further distorted by the rain that was streaming down them. It had been raining for some time.

  “To answer your first question,” answered Betiver, “in Gallia they say that the Anglian homeland has become a wilderness. There are no more reinforcements left to come. To answer your second question, the last messengers we had say that Lindum is surrounded. Even if he does not take it, eastern Britannia already lies in Icel’s grasp. . . .”

  “You are such a comforter,” commented Gualchmai, lounging against the doorframe. He had grown taller even than Artor, and had to duck these days to go through. His brother Gwyhir, who had joined Artor’s household two years after his brother, was almost as tall, and no doubt young Aggarban, the third of Artor’s nephews to come to them, would be a big man too.

  “Lindum was badly hit last time the Saxons attacked, and the walls were never repaired.” Betiver traced the line of the Roman road northward. “By now it may have fallen. We should have reinforced it long ago.”

  “Gualchmai is right,” muttered the king. “You are depressing.”

  “You would not thank me for lying to you . . .”

  Artor looked up with that quick smile that took the sting from his words. “You are right, of course, but this is horrible weather for doing anything with cavalry. Do the Angles have webbed feet? I’m told that Anglia is all fenland—they must feel right at home.”

  Gualchmai guffawed. “I’ll wager they do! I ought to have looked at old Oesc’s feet when he was here. But he is a Jute of some kind, is he not?”

  “His mother was Myrging, but Hengest was Anglian. Fortunately Oesc is rooted in Cantium, and content to keep to his own borders, thank God,” added Betiver.

  “But he is oathed to Artor—surely you could call—”

  The king shook his head. “I raised a wild gosling once that followed me as if I were its mother. All through one summer it fed with the white farm geese and seemed content. But when the wild geese passed overhead in the autumn, my gosling opened her wings and flew away. I tried to call her back, and she circled thrice, but she could not deny her nature and so I lost her.”

  Gualchmai met his gaze blankly.

  “I believe I have won Oesc’s friendship, and I have his word,” Artor said then, “but even though Hengest’s line and Icel’s were rivals, I know better than to overstrain Oesc’s loyalty. There is more to kingship than giving orders—you must understand the nature of those you rule.”

  Gualchmai’s ruddy skin grew redder. “Your orders are enough for me . . .”

  “Because that is your nature,” answered Artor softly.

  “No doubt Cataur will send men, but it will take some time for them to get here,” Betiver said into the silence that followed. “He loves killing Saxons, whoever they may be. There will be a troop from Glevum, and one from Deva—” He began to reckon the forces at their command.

  “And we’ll need some infantry. I wonder . . .” Suddenly Artor smiled. “Perhaps Cunorix would like to bring me a band of his wild Irishmen. They should have no objection to fighting Icel if they get a good share of the spoils.”

  Outside, it continued to rain.

  It was raining in Cantuware as well. Oesc made passing travelers welcome in his hall and listened to their news. Sitting snug by his fire, he told himself that he pitied men who had to march across the soggy soil of the Coritani lands, that there was no glory in that kind of fighting anyway.

  The weather that had delayed the royal messengers also slowed the men who were responding to Artor’s call. But the Angles, accustomed to muddy footing, pushed onward, and shortly after Beltain, word came that Lindum had fallen. Icel now possessed a base, if he could keep it, from which he might control everything between Eburacum and Durolipons.

  Oesc tossed a coin to the pack-man who had brought the news and strode out of the hall. The fine drizzle beaded the blue wool of his cloak with tiny crystals, but he scarcely noticed the damp. He was seeing not the mud of the yard, but the bloody earth of a battlefield, and instead of Wulfhere and Guthlac and the other men of his household, Betiver and Gualchmai and Artor himself, riding against the foe. He should have been with them—but he understood why the king had not called him. Did Artor really fear that Oesc would have been tempted to fight on the other side?

  He had faced Artor in battle once before, when he did not know him. His gut twisted unpleasantly at the thought of doing so again. But his body cried out for action, he wanted to fight. At that moment he scarcely cared who, and the folk of the steading scattered before him.

  Presently he found himself in front of the barn.

  He called for his horse. Someone asked a question about hunting, and he nodded, and a few minutes later he was trotting towards the southeastern gate of the town. The road cut straight across the flats to the east of the river for several miles. To their right the river gleamed among marshy islets. Beyond it the skirts of the North Downs were clad in forest. But Oesc made no move to get to the other side—these woods, so close to the town, held no game capable of challenging him now.

  It was nightfall before they crossed the river and came to the ancient trackway that climbed to the tops of the Downs. There they made camp, and before the sun was high they were taking the path into the hills. A night in the op
en had muted Oesc’s sense of urgency. As riding warmed him, stiff muscles began to ease. He drew a deep breath of the morning air, heavy with the scents of leaf mold and new grass, and felt something that had been drawn tight within him grow easier as well. He actually saw the scenery he was looking at for the first time since leaving his hall. And when, just after noon, they crossed the track of a stag, awareness of all else fell away and he gave himself entirely to the joy of the chase.

  By the depth of the prints, the stag was old enough to have learned all the tricks by which a hunted beast can elude its foes. But Oesc’s tracker was a lad whose folk had lived on the Downs since before the Romans came, and he knew the beasts of his native woods as well as his own kin. A little past noon, they caught sight of the quarry and kicked their horses into all-out pursuit. Oesc’s mount was the swiftest, and so he was out of sight of the others when, swinging wide to avoid a fallen tree, his horse put a foot into a hole. Oesc felt the beast lurch beneath him, but before he could get clear the horse went down. He was aware of trees blurring past, and then a resounding impact, and then, for quite some time, of nothing at all.

  When Oesc came to himself again the clouds had wrapped the hillside in a damp embrace; everything beyond a few feet was dissolving into featureless grey. His horse stood a few feet away, one foreleg barely touching the ground. With a groan Oesc got upright, made his way over to the animal and gently felt the limb. It did not seem to be broken, thank the gods, though it was clearly a bad sprain. When he tugged on the rein, the horse followed, on three legs only, after him.